UB Alumni-Student Panel Examine the Future of Equitable Curricula

Dean Julia Czerniak opened the event, welcoming the panel and attendees and emphasizing that advancing freedom and wellbeing for Black communities is a year-round priority for the School. Sid Clarke (MUP ’26), president of the Graduate Planning Student Association introduced the panelists:

• Dr. Enjoli Hall (MUP ’17) has spent the last decade engaged in collaborative research, examining the intersections of urban planning, racial justice, and health equity. Her work focuses broadly on how urban and industrial environments shape community health and relationships of power and care.
• DaMante’ Curry (BS Biological Sciences ’19, MSRED ’26) — well versed in workforce development, community engagement, and regional transportation planning — is a member of the City of Buffalo's Preservation Board, working to honor the innovative legacy of Western New York's built environment.
• Jillian Daniels (MArch ’28), designer and curator, aims to develop frameworks for imagining equitable futures grounded in present conditions and historical precedent — connecting historical narratives and design theory to better understand environments through storytelling.

Dr. Taylor opened the discussion by asking each panelist what sparked their initial interest in their respective fields. A shared theme quickly emerged: each had noticed early on that the built environment changes drastically depending on who lives there. Through their lived experiences, they came to recognize that these differences are the result of intentional decisions, policies, and design choices, and they wanted to understand how those systems worked and, more importantly, how to change them.

Daniels, who grew up in North Buffalo and frequently traveled to the East Side to visit family, remembered how stark those differences were even as a child. After losing her own home in a fire, those observations and related musings on the role and importance of “home” became deeply personal. “I realized how important it is to have a safe home and to be able to live in a neighborhood that provides you with that,” she reflected. “That’s not always accessible for people that look like us. That’s why I got into architecture. Because I believe there needs to be someone there to rebuild.”

When asked how UB’s curriculum shaped their understanding of these issues, the panelists offered thoughtful, candid reflections. Curry noted that discussions about race were fairly limited in the real estate program, despite how deeply intertwined it is with development patterns. However, the program’s small class sizes created an opening for discussions around these topics.

 “I wanted to be challenged academically and theoretically,” he explained. “Many people just accept that things are done a certain way in the profession, but that’s dangerous when that doesn’t work for people who look like you. It’s important to be willing and able to have those conversations and feel comfortable doing it.” The audience responded with a round of applause.

Dr. Hall acknowledged that the MUP curriculum intentionally included discussions around structural oppression and marginalization, but she also made considerable efforts to augment that through independent study. She felt strongly that, while it’s vital to learn those histories and oppressive laws and policies, more information is needed to understand how to fix it. “I wanted to not only understand oppression but also what types of communities and spaces Black people have built throughout history—what we have imagined, planned, designed, and built.” Later, during her PhD, she took the initiative to co-design and teach a course at MIT to explore those ideas more deeply with students.

On the subject of how well her courses are preparing her to tackle these real-world-challenges, Daniels acknowledged that the School is giving her the skills she needs to succeed in the field of architecture. Still, she noted that the industry’s rigid standards often leave little room to adequately address issues like racism and classism. “I question how the field of architecture is able to adapt to the ideas of race, class, and gender, because more often than not, we are still perpetuating and working within the same systems that enable us to remove a large part of the voices that should be there to instruct how to do these things well and sustainably.”

Dr. Hall reflected on how the program’s intensive collaborative work helped her build essential skills in facilitation, shared decision-making, giving and receiving feedback, and conflict resolution. Though she initially hesitated—identifying as an introvert—she ultimately came to value and embrace that way of working. “We need to be even more explicit about that and pay more attention to relational skills, because we have to figure out how to come together and how to work with people, even people we don’t agree with.”

The discussion surfaced several other key ideas, including: the role of the classroom as a protected space for testing “semi-dangerous,” imaginative, and unconventional ideas; a call to move beyond state-centered and capitalist frameworks when addressing systemic issues; the importance of viewing local issues through a global lens to recognize how racial capitalism and settler colonialism shape similar struggles worldwide; and the added pressure on underrepresented professionals to conform to industry norms, limiting their ability to challenge entrenched systems of oppression.

For his closing question, Dr. Taylor asked the panelists how they would redesign the School’s curriculum to better prepare students to build just futures. Curry urged the School to create more hands-on opportunities for real estate students. “I love the ability to understand how things work, but now I want to see things work. We should be able to have these conversations and then go out into the community, especially a place like Buffalo with some of the most genuine people you will ever meet, and really make an impact.”

Daniels acknowledged the success that she’s seen in the urban planning program when it comes to partnering with community organizations and expressed that she would love to see similar opportunities expanded within the architecture program. She also emphasized the need for more guidance on how to build community trust and secure meaningful buy-in. “Everything that we do should come from a place of genuine care and empathy, so instruction on how to gain community trust would be valuable.”

Dr. Hall encouraged stronger alignment with social movements to help students apply their skills in transformative ways. She also advocated for studios and practicums that allow students to build out imaginative ideas. “Why don’t we use more of our physical space to quite literally make space? Let’s imagine that we’re in a future where we’re moving away from carceral systems and infrastructure, and let’s try to imagine and build out what that looks like to help people see it, to get more people on board towards moving away from these systems.”

Dr. Taylor closed by explaining the Ghanaian concept of Sankofa, which teaches that understanding our past is essential for making sense of the present and shaping the future. He thanked the panelists for providing a vision for tomorrow and illuminating how their fields—which are often utilized to create barriers—can be repurposed for justice.

“It is our job to refashion these curriculums so that we can begin to see the future,” he concluded. “So Black people can begin to see what a just future looks like. So that we can imagine a world in which we do not build neighborhoods that are designed to recreate the racial order as a neighborhood hierarchy. A future where every community will be healthy, prosperous, and most important of all, joyful.”